Read more on the repertoire in the printed

Wendy Herbener Mehne, flute
Pablo Cohen, guitar
May 11, 2015
7:00 PM
Americas Society
680 Park Avenue
New York
Dear friends,
Last season, we had the pleasure of hearing Ithaca College’s contemporary music
ensemble in a program that included music by an international roster of composers
written in the last 50 years. We are very happy to welcome flutist Wendy Herbener
Mehne again to Music of the Americas, this time in a duo with her colleague Pablo
Cohen. Their program spans the continent, offering a panoramic sampling of the
repertoire for the ever appealing duo of flute and guitar.
Thank you for joining us!
Sebastian Zubieta, Music Director
The MetLife Foundation Music of the Americas concert series is made possible by
the generous support of Presenting Sponsor MetLife Foundation.
The Spring 2015 Music program is also supported, in part, by public funds from
the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City
Council, and The Amphion Foundation, Inc.
In-kind support for this program is provided by Ithaca College School of Music.
AMERICAS SOCIETY
680 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10065 • T: (212) 249 8950
www.as-coa.org
Wendy Herbener Mehne & Pablo Cohen
New Music for Flute & Guitar
PROGRAM
Astor Piazzolla
Histoire du Tango
Bordel 1900
Café 1930
Nightclub 1960
Concert d’aujourd’hui
Marlos Nobre
Samba matuto
Cantiga
É lamp
Gavião
Martelo
Ciclo Nordestino op. 5
Dana Wilson
A. Piazzolla
Breathing the water
INTERMISSION
Egberto Gismonti
Libertango
Água e vinho
Radamés Gnattali
Cantando con simplicidade
Espressivo e poco rubato
Movido
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Sonatina
About the program
Astor Piazzolla, Histoire du Tango (1985)
Argentinean composer Astor Piazzolla was best known for his compositions
inspired by the Tango. The composer fused elements of jazz and contemporary
classical music into this dance form to create a new style derived from the music
he heard and played throughout his life. Although early in his career the composer
earned a living in Buenos Aires as a bandoneon player, he did not initially include
the Tango in his compositions. During his study with Nadia Boulanger in Europe,
Piazzolla found his voice by incorporating the dance style that he knew so well
with other elements of his musical heritage to great success.
Histoire du Tango is one of Piazzolla’s most well-known works. It has been
performed by a large variety of different instrumental combinations and traces
the history of the tango through a several time periods and showcases the dance’s
development throughout the 20th century. Piazzolla states that Bordel 1900 “is
full of grace and liveliness. It paints a picture of the good-natured chatter of the
French, Italian, and Spanish women who peopled these bordellos as they teased
the policemen, thieves, sailors and riffraff who came to see them. This is a lively
tango.” The tango had changed by 1930, reflected in the lyricism of the second
movement. Here the composer states “People stopped dancing it as they did in
1900, preferring instead simply listening to it. It became more musical and more
romantic.” Night Club 1960 corresponds to Piazzolla’s return to Argentina after
spending two years in New York experimenting with the mixture of jazz and tango.
The lively and rhythmic movement suggests the renewed energy that began a new
chapter in the composer’s life.
© Dr. Noah Getz, Pictures on Silence, used with permission
Marlos Nobre Ciclo Nordestino op. 5 (1982)
The composer writes:
Throughout my childhood, I listened to, danced to, and cheered with Maracatús,
Frevos, Caboclinhos, Bumba-meu-boi, and the Nau Catarineta. But it was the
Maracatú and its incredible and mystic percussion that developed in me this
profound and unconscious rhythmic sense that has always been fundamental in
my musical creation. The polyrhythm, the big crescendos, the dynamic contrasts,
the irregular accents within a powerful constant pulse, the deep low sounds
generated by ganzás [maracas], agogôs [African iron bells], bombos [low drums],
and atabaques [afro-Brazilian conical-shaped, single-headed hand drums similar
to conga drums], are the strongest impressions I have from my childhood. They
are very much alive in my blood and my heart, much more than in my head.
Marlos Nobre (b. 1939, Brazil) grew up in Recife, Pernambuco, in the household
of two music lovers and amateur musicians: his father played the guitar, and his
mother played the piano. He studied piano and music theory at the Conservatory
of Music in Pernambuco from 1948 to 1959, and composition with HansJoachim Koellreutter and Camargo Guarnieri. After receiving a scholarship
from the Rockefeller Foundation, he pursued advanced studies at the Centro
Latinoamericano de Altos Estudios Musicales in Buenos Aires, where teachers
included Alberto Ginastera, Olivier Messiaen, Gianfrancesco Malipiero, Aaron
Copland, and Luigi Dallapiccola. He worked also with Alexander Goehr and
Gunther Schuller at the Berkshire Music Center (Tanglewood, 1969), where
he met Leonard Bernstein. That same year he studied electronic music at the
Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in New York. Over his career,
Nobre has received commissions from numerous institutions, including the
Ministry of Culture of Spain, the Universidade Livre de Música in São Paulo,
the Orchestre de chambre de Neuchâtel (Switzerland), The Apollon Foundation
(Germany), and the Festival del Nuevo Mundo in Maracaibo (Venezuela). He has
also sat on juries at numerous international music competitions, including the
Cità di Alessandria Prize and the Arthur Rubinstein Piano Master Competition.
Dana Wilson Breathing the water (2010)
The composer writes:
This piece was written for flutist Kate Steinbeck and guitarist Amy Brucksch,
to be featured as part of the tenth anniversary of the Keowee Chamber
Music Festival in Asheville, North Carolina. The composer took letters from
these performers’ names (that are also found in music notation) to generate
the work’s main material. This material can be heard quite literally in the
opening flute melody, as well as in the accompanying guitar chords. The piece
is intended to evoke the simplicity and sound world of much “mountain
music,” while also illuminating contrasting states of water: a mountain lake
and river torrents. “Breathing the Water” is the title of a book of poetry by
Denise Levertov, who was associated with the Black Mountain Poetry School,
so named for its association with Black Mountain College (1933-1957) near
Asheville. Performance note: The flute “whistle tone” can be produced by
blowing very gently across the embouchure hole and directing the airstream
upward and pushing the jaw forward very slightly to activate the overtones.
The pitches can also be played very faintly as harmonics.
The works of Dana Wilson have been commissioned and performed by the
Chicago Chamber Musicians, Formosa String Quartet, Detroit Chamber Winds
and Strings, Buffalo Philharmonic, Xaimen Symphony, Netherlands Wind
Ensemble, Syracuse Symphony, and Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra. Solo works
have been written for artists such as hornists Gail Williams and Adam Unsworth,
clarinetist Larry Combs, trumpeters James Thompson and Rex Richardson, and
oboist David Weiss. He has received grants from, among others,
the National Endowment for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, New
England Foundation for the Arts, New York State Council for the Arts, Arts
Midwest, and Meet the Composer. His compositions have been performed
throughout the US, Europe, and Asia; have received several prizes, including the
Sudler International Composition Prize and the Ostwald Composition Prize,
as well as awards from the International Trumpet Guild and the International
Horn Society; are published by Boosey and Hawkes, Alfred Music Publishers,
the American Composers Forum, and Ludwig Music Publishers; and can be
heard on such labels as Klavier, Albany, Summit, Centaur, Innova, and Kosei
Recordings. Dana Wilson holds a doctorate from the Eastman School of Music,
and is currently Charles A. Dana Professor of Music in the School of Music at
Ithaca College. He is co-author of Contemporary Choral Arranging, published
by Prentice Hall/Simon and Schuster, and has written articles on diverse musical
subjects. He has been a Yaddo Fellow (at Yaddo, the artists’ retreat in Saratoga
Springs, New York), a Wye Fellow at the Aspen Institute, a Charles A. Dana
Fellow, and a Fellow at the Society for Humanities, Cornell University.
Astor Piazzolla Libertango
The title for this composition, recorded and published in 1974 in Milan,
is a portmanteau, combining “Libertad” (liberty) and “Tango,” effectively
symbolizing Piazzolla’s break from classical tango to tango nuevo. This piece has
appeared on over 500 separate album releases. The fiendish melody interwoven
with spicy rhythms have made this piece paramount to Piazzolla’s signature
sound.
Egberto Gismonti Água e vinho (1972)
Egberto Gismonti began his piano studies at age six. After studying classical
music for 15 years, he went to Paris to work on orchestration and analysis
with Nadia Boulanger, and composition Jean Barraqué, a disciple of Arnold
Schönberg and Anton Webern. He returned to Brazil and cast a wider net than
the one provided by his classical training. In particular, he was attracted by the
ideas of orchestration and complex arrangements of Maurice Ravel and the
popular Brazilian instrumental style of choro, in which various types of guitars
are interwoven. He started on a six-string guitar, evolving to an eight-string
by 1973. By this time he had laid the foundation for his unique style drawing
inspiration from musicians as diverse as Django Reinhardt and Jimi Hendrix. He
spent two years experimenting with different kinds of temperaments and seeking
new sounds, reflected in his use of instruments including flutes, kalimbas, sho,
voice, bells, etc. For him, the achievements of Hendrix were proof that the words
“popular” and “serious” were not antithetical: “There is no difference between
the two styles of music ....” Água e vinho is one of Gismonti’s most popular pieces
from the album Alma.
Radamés Gnattali Sonatina (1963)
An utter workaholic, Gnattali composed no less than 26 concertos for
various instruments and orchestra, dozens of occasional symphonic
pieces, and also a great number of chamber pieces. He was very fond
of the characteristic combination of flute and guitar, the solo and basso
continuo respectively of choro groups, and wrote this Sonatina in 1963
for his friend Laurindo Almeida. Bossa-nova, the laid-back new wave of
Brazilian pop music, was at the height of its popularity at the time, and
Gnatalli put much of his harmonic creativity into the movement, deriving
in exchange an intimacy of expression that can be heard in this piece. All
three movements make generous use of bitonality, creating an atmosphere
that is at once disconcerting and relaxed. The lack of clear tonal points
of rest make this piece a challenge for the interpreters, who have to
sustain the seemingly never-ending melodies with a clear conception
of harmonic progression. He adheres to the classical abbreviated sonata
form with a certain degree of license, as each movement is based on a
form typically performed by the old choro groups: a schottische in the
first; a seranade in the second; and, finally, a true chorinho in the last. The
result is characteristic of Gnattali: within a classical framework, he injects
a touch of modernity in his harmonic procedures, marrying the fluid
improvisational style of the old choro with the soft-spoken subtlety of the
bossa-nova.
© Fábio Zanon, used with permission of Meridian Records (UK)
Radamés Gnattali is a fundamental name in Brazilian music. A classically
trained composer, conductor, orchestrator, and arranger, he worked in popular
music, deeply influencing Brazilian the genre through his arrangements and
his omnipresence at the musical direction of Rádio Nacional, the biggest
broadcaster in Brazil at that time. His compositions, both in the intellectual
and popular fields, bridged the gap between the two idioms. His parents
were musicians and he started studying with his mother at age six. His goal
of becoming a concert pianist was thwarted by his parents’ lack of means,
and he had to work in dance halls and take in students. In 1923, he finished
his studies and moved to Rio, where he performed at the Instituto Nacional
de Música, met prominent musicians and became the music director of the
newly-established Rádio Nacional. His Orquestra Brasileira Radamés Gnattali,
founded in 1943, was one of the first in the country, and he was for 13 years
the host for the show Um Milhão de Melodias, which presented international
music with Brazilian treatments in Gnattali’s arrangements. His compositions
for orchestra include concerti for harmonica and accordion, among others. He
continued to write for the concert hall, as well as for radio and TV, until his
death in 1988.
About the artists
The Cohen-Mehne Duo, a faculty ensemble at Ithaca College’s School
of Music, has performed together for 20 years throughout the U.S and
abroad. With generous support from Ithaca College, the duo embarked on
a year-long project dedicated to performing and teaching modern works by
Pan-American composers. They have performed Brazilian, Argentinian,
and American music at regional conferences and venues throughout the
year, as well as working with student flute and guitar duos as part of Ithaca
College’s chamber music program. Future projects include recording flute
and guitar works by Ithaca College composer, Dana Wilson, for a CD of his
flute chamber music, a year-long project dedicated to World Music with
an emphasis on Latin American composers, a commission for a new piece
by Ithaca College composer, Jorge Grossmann, publication of the duo’s
transcriptions of pieces by Carlos Guastavino, Marlos Nobre, and Steve Reich,
and the release of a CD of music by Latin American composers, Radamés
Gnattali, Astor Piazzolla, Carlos Guastavino, and Roberto Sierra.
Pablo Cohen graduated from Temple University with a Doctor in
Musical Arts degree. He has received numerous prizes and awards for his
performances in national and international competitions. More recently he
received the Music Teachers National Association Award for his outstanding
teaching. Dr. Cohen is the head of the classical guitar program at Ithaca
College and an affiliated artist at Cornell University.
“Grand class and enlightened emotion...” These are the words that Les
Cahiers de la Guitare used to describe the playing of Pablo Cohen upon his
debut recital at the Salle Cortot in Paris. “Fluid and delicate shape” wrote the
Philadelphia Inquirer in reviewing his rendering of Giuliani’s Concerto for
guitar and strings with Concerto Soloists Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia.
At his debut at the Ho-Am Hall for Performing Arts in Seoul in 1990,
the Korea Times praised him as “One of the foremost South-American
guitarists.” More recently, he had the distinction of recording the premier
of Carlos Guastavino’s Jeromita Linares with Camerata Bariloche Chamber
Orchestra (Argentina, Dorian Records). Gramophone gave it “a cordial
recommendation: outstandingly fine playing of a repertoire few of us know.”
His transcriptions of Chick Corea’s Children Songs along with his unveiling
of solo and ensemble music by Latin American masters such as Radamés
Gnattali, Horacio Salgán, and Carlos Guastavino represent an exciting new
direction for classical guitar today.
Dr. Cohen has participated in solo, ensemble, and orchestral concerts in the
United States, Europe, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. As a featured
artist, he performed at the Salle Cortot (Paris), Ho-Am Hall for Performing
Arts (Seoul), Carnegie Hall, Teatro Nacional (Panamá), Teatro San Martin
(Buenos Aires), the Performing Arts Hall of Berklee College of Music (Boston)
and at many venues throughout the US. Festival appearances have included
The New York City International Guitar Festival (Mannes), Guitar Foundation
of America International Convention, Mozart on the Square (Philadelphia),
Festival Casals (Puerto Rico), Carrefour Mondial de la Guitare (Martinique),
The City of Geneva International Festival, Tel-Aviv Guitar Festival, Calcaño
Festival (Caracas), “Festival de Guitarra Clásica” (Buenos Aires) and Musickfest
(Bethlehem, PA). Recent engagements have included performances as featured
soloist with the Concerto Soloists Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Ithaca
College Chamber Orchestra, Mansfield University Chamber Orchestra, a guest
appearance at 92Y with the Young People’s Choir of NYC, performances for
chamber music series with Ensemble X, the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra and
with the Pro Musica Ensemble.
Wendy Herbener Mehne is professor of flute at Ithaca College where was
a 1995-96 Dana Teaching Fellow and the 2004 London Sabbatical Scholar.
She is a member of the Cohen-Mehne Duo and principal flutist with the
Cayuga Chamber Orchestra. With Pulitzer prize-winning composer, Steven
Stucky, and colleagues from Ithaca College and Cornell University, she was a
founding member of the new music group, Ensemble X. Together they have
made recordings of chamber music by Steven Stucky, Judith Weir, and John
David Earnest. Dr. Mehne has been a guest artist and given master classes
throughout the United States, and has performed with the Chautauqua
Symphony and at the Skaneateles Festival. As a member of the Ithaca Wind
Quintet, she gave the world premiere of Karel Husa’s Cayuga Lake (Memories)
at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall and Dana Wilson’s Mirrors at the 1993
National Flute Association convention in Boston. She has also performed
at Carnegie Hall, Weill Recital Hall, Constitution Hall, the national ACDA
and SEAMUS conferences, the International Guitar Festival in Fort de
France, Martinique, numerous National Flute Association conventions, and
in broadcasts by affiliates of National Public Radio and Public Television.
Dr. Mehne is a contributing author for Flutist Quarterly, Flute Talk and the
Instrumentalist and has recorded for Koch, Albany, Mark, and Open Loop
labels. She has been secretary of the National Flute Association, served on
its executive board, and is currently a member of their board of directors.
Dr. Mehne holds degrees from the University of Nebraska, Michigan State
University, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her teachers include
David Van de Bogart, Israel Borouchoff, Robert Willoughby, Richard Graef,
and Robert Cole.
US premiere with Teatro Colón
Our relationship with Teatro Colón’s Centro de Experimentación expands
this season with a fully staged production of the new opera Hercules in Mato
Grosso, which Zubieta conducted in Buenos Aires this past November. Featuring
sopranos Sarah Brailey and Alice Teyssier, Buenos Aires-based baritone Alejandro
Spies, tenor Peter Tantsis, and pianists Taka Kigawa Leandro Rodríguez Jáuregui,
directed by Clara Cullen, on May 20th at Dixon Place on the Lower East Side.
This production explores the early twentieth-century travels of French-Brazilian
photographer Hercule Florence in the Brazilian rainforest. Argentine novelist
Pola Oloixarac developed the story for the libretto at the Department of Romance
Languages at Harvard; the score by Buenos Aires-based composer-pianist Esteban
Insinger and set design by French-Argentine visual artist Luna Paiva create a
unique world in which the German Baron von Langsdorff and Florence are free
to explore.
For more information or to purchase tickets, visit as-coa.org/music.
Summer 2015 Events
Next month we wrap up our 2014-2015 Music of the Americas season with a
Brazilian and a Peruvian:
On Sunday, June 21, the longest day of the year, we continue our adventures
in Central Park with Make Music New York, featuring the world premiere of
I am [where], making a personal trajectory of listening, a site-specific Americas
Society-commissioned work by Brazilian composer Valéria Bonafé. We return to
the Dalehead Arch near 64th St and West Drive with a diverse instrumentation,
including accordion, flute, voice, and percussion. This unique sun up to
sundown event happens each year on the summer solstice and features outdoor
performances throughout the boroughs. This event is free and open to the public!
On Tuesday, June 30, our final event of the season, Peruvian guitarist Jorge
Caballero performs a solo recital as part of the New York Guitar Seminar at
Mannes. Caballero recently released an album of Russian orchestral masterworks
transcribed for solo guitar, and this performance features Mussorgsky’s epic
favorite Pictures at an Exhibition. Caballero is the youngest musician and the
only guitarist to win the Walter W. Naumburg International Competition (1996,
age 19), one of the most coveted awards given to performers of any instrument,
comparable to a Pulitzer Prize for instrumental musicians. He began his
professional training at the Conservatorio Nacional de Música (Peru), where he
studied with Oscar Zamora. He has received top prizes at the Tokyo International
Guitar Competition, the Luis Sigall competition, and the First Latin American
Guitar competition.
For information on all these events, please visit our website at as-coa.org/music.
We hope you can join us!
Flutists in Central Park for Make Music New York 2014. Image by Roey Yohai.
About the concert series
Since 1965, the Music of the Americas Concert Series has presented
musical luminaries such as Plácido Domingo, Antonio Meneses, Mercedes
Sosa, Egberto Gismonti, Hermeto Pascoal, Continuum Ensemble, Bobby
Sanabria, Inti-Illimani, Cuarteto Latinoamericano, Jaime Laredo, the
Spanish Harlem Orchestra, Tanya Tagaq, and many others.
MetLife Foundation Music of the Americas concerts take place at
Americas Society’s headquarters and partnering organizations across
New York City. The concert series brings together an ever-expanding
urban audience with consistently high-caliber musicians from across the
hemisphere, showcasing oft-underrepresented music and rendering it
immediate and accessible.
Folk duo Luna Monti & Juan Quintero with Miguel Zenón. Image by Roey Yohai.
SPRING/SUMMER 2015
Thursday, February 12
7 pm
Tuesday, February 24
7 pm
Thursday, March 5
7 pm
Friday, March 13
7 pm
Monday, March 30
7 pm
Friday, April 24
7 pm
Monday, April 27
7 pm
NEW DATE: Tuesday, May 5
7 pm
Monday, May 11
7 pm
Wednesday, May 20
7 pm
Sunday, June 21
5 pm
Tuesday, June 30
7 pm
Colombian vocalist Lucía Pulido
Canciones de despecho: Songs of Heartbreak
Cuban pianist Willanny Darias
Schumann, Albéniz, León, Ginastera
Arakaendar: Music from Bolivian Jesuit Missions
@ Hispanic Society of America
International Contemporary Ensemble
Mario Davidovsky World Premiere
Exponential Ensemble with Adaskin String Trio
Beethoven, Adaskin, Golijov
Teen ensemble Face the Music
New music from Puerto Rico
Meridionalis: Music of Francisco López Capillas
@ Hispanic Society of America
Argentine folk singers Juan Quintero & Luna
Monti with special guest Miguel Zenón
Wendy Mehne & Pablo Cohen
New music for flute and guitar
Hercules in Mato Grosso: US premiere opera
@ Dixon Place
Make Music New York: Valéria Bonafé Premiere
@ Central Park Dalehead Arch
Jorge Caballero, guitar
Russian orchestral masterworks
visit www.as-coa.org/music/events for more information
AMERICAS SOCIETY MEMBERSHIP
Become an Americas Society member today! Visit www.as-coa.org/membership
for more information and to join online, or call 212 277 8359 ext. 4.
Benefits include:
Supporting Members:
• Free access to Literature, Music, and Visual Arts programs and meet-theartist receptions.
• Invitations to members-only events.
• Free Music of the Americas CD.
Sustaining, Contributing and Donor Members: All of the above plus:
• Member rate admission to public policy programs (for the member).
• Bring 1 guest free of charge to Literature, Music, and Visual Arts programs
and meet-the-artist receptions.
• Bring one or more guests free of charge to members-only and VIP culture
events.
Eddy Marcano Cuarteto Acústico & Musica Ficta
Music of the Americas now has two CDs available for purchase! The first, recorded
live at Americas Society in 2009 and produced by Americas Society’s own Sebastián
Zubieta, features Eddy Marcano Cuarteto Acústico and is available for download on
iTunes, Amazon, and other stores. The second, recorded at Hispanic Society of America
in 2014, features the Spanish vocal ensemble Musica Ficta in a program of early Latin
American music with harpist Manuel Vilas, conducted by Raúl Mallavibarrena.
Music Notes is a continuing series of online articles that looks at recent concerts
in the Music of the Americas Series. Available at the Americas Society website, the
articles showcase videos, photos, and audio from the concerts, and discuss issues and
ideas brought up by the artists and the music.
Visit www.as-coa.org/music for more information.
A
mericas Society is the premier forum dedicated to education,
debate and dialogue in the Americas. Its mission is to foster an
understanding of the contemporary political, social and economic issues
confronting Latin America, the Caribbean and Canada, and to increase
public awareness and appreciation of the diverse cultural heritage of the
Americas and the importance of the inter-American relationship.
Upcoming Concerts
Wednesday, May 20
7 pm
Sunday, June 21
7 pm
Tuesday, June 30
7 pm
Hercules in Mato Grosso: US premiere opera
@ Dixon Place
Make Music New York: Valéria Bonafé Premiere
@ Central Park Dalehead Arch
Jorge Caballero, guitar
Russian orchestral masterworks
Visit our website as-coa.org/music
for more information on Music of the Americas Summer 2015 Events!
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